1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus for estimating the intensity distribution of irradiated light, and an image display apparatus and method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional image display apparatuses, such as liquid crystal display apparatuses, which use light sources and optical modulation elements, control of the light source luminance is executed in each of the areas into which the entire illumination area of the light sources is divided, for the purpose of enlarging the display dynamic range and the purpose of power saving.
US Patent Application Publication No. 2005/184952 A1, for example, discloses a technique of controlling the luminance of each of the light sources that constitute a backlight, and estimating the intensity distribution of the light emitted from the backlight, with reference to intensity distribution data concerning the light emitted from each of the light sources.
However, if the illumination area of each light source is wide, and the adjacent illumination areas greatly overlap each other, a large storage capacity is necessary to store the light intensity distribution data of the light sources. Further, to estimate the intensity distribution of the light emitted from the backlight, a large number of computations are required.
To reduce the required storage capacity or the required number of computations, it is possible to approximate the actual intensity distribution of the light, emitted from each light source, by illumination intensity distribution data obtained using a spatial range narrower than the actual spatial range. In this case, however, an error due to the approximation made by ignoring the light of peripheral portions of each light source will inevitably occur.